Peach County closing out early home schedule
The long homestand is finally coming to an end for Peach County.
Having five games at home to start a team’s schedule is rare, and except for a season-opening loss to Warner Robins, Trojans head coach Chad Campbell has enjoyed seeing his team’s progress in the past month.
Peach County is riding a three-game win streak to get to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in GHSA Region 2-AAA as it prepares to host Rutland (1-3) at on Friday.
“We’ve slowly been coming around to playing good football,” Campbell said. “We love playing in front of our home crowd, and it has been a nice stretch to start the start the season out on our home field. We don’t have to travel, which is great, because nobody likes loading up the bus, loading up on the cheese and heading down the road. “
The Trojans are coming off a 41-0 rout of Spencer last week.
Rutland picked up its only victory of the season in a thrilling double-overtime victory over Northeast in the second week of the season but has not been able to find much success since. One of those losses came against undefeated Howard, but with limited experience due to injuries, depth has been an issue so far for the Hurricanes.
In its three losses, Rutland has allowed a combined 100 points, but that hasn’t stopped the Hurricanes from rolling out freshmen and sophomores who are earning valuable experience.
“We have to improve our execution in some areas,” Rutland head coach George Collins said. “For the most part we have been in games but let them slip away. We’re banged up with some injuries and really young, and that combination is not what you want, but some of our young kids are playing well. We’ve got some young kids that are improving and getting better every week, and that can help us going forward.”
Trojans senior quarterback Tyrique McGhee was in his usual playmaking form last week, at least for a half, which was all that he played. McGhee connected on 13-of-17 passes for 185 yards, while rushing for 51 yards and a touchdown.
And while Peach County’s next five opponents have a combined record of 9-14 entering Friday, Campbell sees things that his team still needs to improve upon as it moves through the region schedule.
“Coach Collins has had some bad luck at Rutland with injuries the past couple of seasons,” Campbell said. “Some of the worst luck imaginable, but they’ll be ready to play Friday. Last week, we put together our best game by far, and I thought we played a whole lot better in all facets of the ballgame. We still didn’t play well from a mental standpoint, but it was by far better than it has been and that’s an area we’ll continue to get better at.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2015 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Peach County closing out early home schedule ."